SimCity

 PC
User Score
2.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 4557 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 602 out of 4557
  2. Mixed: 428 out of 4557
  3. Negative: 3,527 out of 4557
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  1. rawsl
    Sep 4, 2014
    5
    It's a very beautiful game, but the simulation is lacking depth and the size of cities is just to small. I can only recommend it to people who want to play it as casual game.
  2. Antiqua
    Mar 5, 2013
    5
    Ignoring the DRM the game is at this point still not worth buying. While for the most part this is a good upgrade of the sim city series the one thing that really hampers it is the map size.
    While in theory the addition of curved roads that allow you more freedom in how you design your city should be awesome the reality is that because the maps are so tiny any creativity will be severely    Ignoring the DRM the game is at this point still not worth buying. While for the most part this is a good upgrade of the sim city series the one thing that really hampers it is the map size.
    While in theory the addition of curved roads that allow you more freedom in how you design your city should be awesome the reality is that because the maps are so tiny any creativity will be severely punished since it's not as dense as a grid type city. The game is also kind of bad at fitting in buildings to the area available which also punishes being creative as you will get tons of unused space either because you got too much space between roads or too little.
    After playing the game for even an hour you will start feeling very cramped and you will basically be left with the option to build inwards, that is tearing down and reconstructing existing plots. For me a bare minimum before I would concider actually giving money for this game would be four times the size but I would really prefer nine or more.
    Of course seeing as this is EA they will milk their customers for everything they got. Expect to see building themes, larger map sizes and everything else that this game should have had at release for sale soon.    … Expand
  3. razster
    Mar 5, 2013
    5
    Though I did play the BETA for 1hr, I liked what I was able to create, the game itself was very pleasing to the eyes and the features/functions were nice... BUT the reason I gave it a lower score of 5 is because I cannot play the game I bought. This is like D3 all over again and I was hoping that a large company like EA would see the folly that Blizzard had, I was wrong.

    So I will only    Though I did play the BETA for 1hr, I liked what I was able to create, the game itself was very pleasing to the eyes and the features/functions were nice... BUT the reason I gave it a lower score of 5 is because I cannot play the game I bought. This is like D3 all over again and I was hoping that a large company like EA would see the folly that Blizzard had, I was wrong.

    So I will only five this a 5 review and nothing more. I think I may have regrets.    … Expand
  4. ABoone
    Mar 5, 2013
    5
    I'll start off by saying its a good game, however the longevity has been completely spoiled by the map size and insistence on 'Multiplayer'. Maxis and EA have forgotten some of the key aspects of what made the SimCity franchise so great such as the aspect of individual immersion. When I play SimCity I don't want to talk or interact with anyone, the door to my room is closed and unlessI'll start off by saying its a good game, however the longevity has been completely spoiled by the map size and insistence on 'Multiplayer'. Maxis and EA have forgotten some of the key aspects of what made the SimCity franchise so great such as the aspect of individual immersion. When I play SimCity I don't want to talk or interact with anyone, the door to my room is closed and unless something important comes up all I want to do is make my city look totally awesome. The people who play SimCity tend to range from kids to people not too far off my grandfathers age and quite honestly I don't think these two demographics particularly want or need to interact with each other. Out of all the games that exist that EA could have chosen to force an 'Always On DRM' I don't think you could have picked a worse game than SimCity. Focusing further on the demographic for a SimCity game, it would appear that EA and Maxis now just assume everybody owns a highspeed internet connection and a relatively powerful desktop computer. One of the dev's I believe had been quotes as saying they wanted to make a game that 'Could run on your dads pc'. Well unless your dad likes to keep up to date with new processors, graphics cards and RAM I think this game will struggle with your every day family PC. As for having an internet connection, I'm sure the developers of a game called 'SimCity' must have come across a thing called a 'Village' or even a 'Small Town' because believe it or not some people who live in such places struggle to have an internet connection that will perform over 24 hours, let alone at a high speed. Moving on to gameplay however, yes, it is an entertaining game. Starting a new city is fun and you can easily get hooked for a few hours trying to manage your city and keep it both proftiable and expansive whilst maintaining your sim's happiness. Being able to choose different paths for your city is fun, going down the root of a Casino town, University town or Industrial town is a lot of fun and the process of achieving your goals is relatively smooth and cathartic. Then after two hours or so, you've filled the map and you have to start all over again on a new plot. How am I expected to grow any emotional attachment to my cities If I can't spend hours upon hours building it up and overcoming obstacles to gain a real sense of achievement? How can I build a city to look unique and have areas such as poor districts for my labour workers, rich districts for my city slickers and the suburbs along long winding roads for the middle classes if I am forced to create a generic high density city grid structure across the entire area? That is not how cities look like! EA may decide to fix these problems with DLC, however quite honestly if I were to buy any DLC from EA it would feel like supplying semtex to the IRA. Everyone knows that EA are quite shameless in their ability to charge people money for DLC that could have quite easily already been in the game, or to charge people money for the right to cheat. Or to charge people money for items within the game, which destroys any form of difficulty curve.

    This puts many people in a worrying position. As someone who likes many of the games and franchises under EA, for example FIFA, Mass Effect, Dead Space etc. If I refused to buy any game release by EA on moral grounds then I would be missing out on quite a lot. However, everytime I purchase an EA game, their disgusting money grabbing antics continue to ruin the market. What I can say though is don't buy SimCity, unless you have the money to burn and don't mind playing something you will get bored of in just a few weeks.    … Expand
  5. Gageracer
    Apr 17, 2013
    5
    I loved Simcity 4 and i was expecting all in 4 more with better graphics in new SC.That's not what i get at all.First of all forget getting the huge sizes in 4, and forget that you are actually building a city.This is Sim Town but i can live with this for now.All those patches server issues, wtf? Is this an MMO or a Simulation game?Ok i get it you want to make sure nobody plays it as aI loved Simcity 4 and i was expecting all in 4 more with better graphics in new SC.That's not what i get at all.First of all forget getting the huge sizes in 4, and forget that you are actually building a city.This is Sim Town but i can live with this for now.All those patches server issues, wtf? Is this an MMO or a Simulation game?Ok i get it you want to make sure nobody plays it as a non-original copy.You want your money.But why in the hell i cannot select whatever server i want and continue my fckn game?I open a space with my friends than that server becomes non-playable.Great lets start again...Secondly, game is clearly not finished at all.It is still a beta game.I don't know how cities this game "forced" me to destroy just because it cannot merge my actions to servers.When that happens game just tells you to remove the city or go back and when you say go back it goes too back.The server is pointless cause it cannot save your game, it is just a DRM! I've stopped playing SC cause i am sick of loosing all my data and this game completely destroyed my ambition for a Simcity game.Yes it has graphs and music etc. but it is not finished, still a beta game.Finally i don't know why you can't get an item when your friends send you at the same time.It tooks for ages and you forgot that you send/get anything.… Expand
  6. bruceariggs
    Mar 5, 2013
    5
    The game is great. It's fun, it's addictive, there's a lot of stuff to do.

    However, DRM warrants a -5 to the score.

    Maybe in the future EA will learn. DRM Bad.
  7. LordLothair
    Mar 5, 2013
    5
    Alright gang, let's get the obligatory complaining out of the way:

    1. Always online DRM 2. Only 2 US servers (5 total) 3. 0 customer service response or presence (255+ minute wait time to speak to an online rep, suddenly removed phone and email support access) The combination of these things has resulted in a horrible release for EA. Can I say I'm surprised: no, not really.    Alright gang, let's get the obligatory complaining out of the way:

    1. Always online DRM
    2. Only 2 US servers (5 total)
    3. 0 customer service response or presence (255+ minute wait time to speak to an online rep, suddenly removed phone and email support access)

    The combination of these things has resulted in a horrible release for EA. Can I say I'm surprised: no, not really. We, as consumers have allowed this behavior, and even excuse it with: It's release day, just wait... Every game has these problems at start... No one can expect the server load... and various other excuse that gets tossed up on a forum complaining about the game. The fact is NOT every game has this problem, because not every game requires online access, not every game requires you to link up with a limited server farm, and not every game is released with almost zero customer service... sigh, now that's out of the way, my review of what (little) I've gotten to play:

    The visuals of the game are wonderful. The city grows very organically, and is pleasing to watch. The detail used to express and track the individual Sims in your city as they go about their daily lives is a great feat and adds so much to the depth of simulation. Musical effects are fitting for the scene and don't draw attention to themselves, while adding just enough ambiance to fill out the effect.

    For those that have played previous SimCity games before, you will find some issues though. First and foremost to me is the limited size you have to build your city in. Due to the "specialization" that you are "encouraged" to use for each city, you are limited to what appears to be about 2 square kilometers for each city. These are not very large spaces, especially compared to some of the huge blocks of space you could use in SimCity 4. Secondly, you will find that things have been streamlined. This is not always a bad thing. Everything runs through streets (power, water, sewage), so you can layout utilities and transport all in one go, however this also feels like "training wheels" to experienced SimCity players. The snap-to guides are handy, but lack any sense of sizing for future development. How big of a zone do I need to have a sky scraper in a few years? I don't know, I guess I'll just put these roads wherever.

    Region interconnectivity is an interesting, but less than stellar additon. The ability to work with friends and assist them to start off by providing Goods or Services is nice, but really rather meaningless if you aren't specializing your city.

    Graphic glitches do exist, but aren't game-breaking (many times my buildings simply dissapear or roads become transparent). The biggest issues are server issues. Any time I have attempted to play I have had to sit and wait for atleast 30 minutes before being able to join a server (yes, I'm sitting for the fifth time today as I write this). This wouldn't be too bad expect for frequent crashes and glitches on cities becoming no responsive that require restarting the game, and sitting the server que... again.

    Another frustraion comes from the division of the servers themselves. The most common response we (people seeking support from EA) have gotten is: "Just join a server that isn't full". That's all fine and good, except the city I just spent three hours on only exists on one server. When you go to a new server, you have to restart with the tutorial (something that you can't skip and is bugged out on some servers), and start all over. Also, you only have access to 10 regions at any one time. You can delete a region to free up space, but this is bugged and currently not releasing the save slot on some servers. The ability to have a private region is nice for those of us that really don't want someone creating a bunch of pollution in our areas, but makes the always online DRM rather oppressive.

    All told, the few hours of play time I have gotten have been enjoyable. It's nice to have a pretty SimCity to poke around with, and I look forward to experimenting with the city specialization and regional superprojects, however, I have spent as much time waiting for tech support and sitting in server lines as I have played in the last 24 hours since release, and that is unacceptable to me.

    Is this a great sequel to SimCity 4... sadly, no. Is it a good game, yes I'd say it is. It is fun, a great time sink, and something that has been lacking in recent games, but as always Buyer Beware when it comes to EA and any other distributors that restricts your access to the game you purchased. My other major concern is future content being distributed as purchased DLC, server instability, or the fact that at any time EA could decide to shut down the SimCity servers and your $60 game is suddenly gone.

    Use your personal scales to decide if you want to play SimCity badly enough to support such bad business practices. If you do, the game itself isn't bad.    … Expand
  8. damionp
    Mar 6, 2013
    5
    Overall, its not that great. Main points: The bad:
    - The DRM is lame, yes. Its not a deal breaker. After server availability issues a couple hours after launch, I haven't had any problems connecting and playing.
    - The city size is laughable. 2 square kilometers per "city", with the number of "cities" determined by the region you pick to play in. Basically, they designed the game to    Overall, its not that great. Main points: The bad:
    - The DRM is lame, yes. Its not a deal breaker. After server availability issues a couple hours after launch, I haven't had any problems connecting and playing.
    - The city size is laughable. 2 square kilometers per "city", with the number of "cities" determined by the region you pick to play in. Basically, they designed the game to force you to specialize each "city" for a role to support another "city" in your region. No option to just make/play in one large area anymore. Oh, and you may as well section off a huge portion of your already tiny play area to expand your town hall...
    - Loading/switching between the tiny cities on the region view seems to take forever. If you're going to force me to micro-manage resource/utility sharing between "cities", you could at least make it run smoothly. The good:
    - Nice graphics.
    - The changes made to streamline building are nice. I realize there are people out there that like to build every last water pipe and power line, but I thought including all of that built-in to the roads was a good idea. The city specializations are interesting and fun to tinker with.
    - Allowing friends and/or other random people build in your region has potential.

    Overall its pretty "meh". Its more "SimTown" inside of a "SimRegion" than it is "SimCity".    … Expand
  9. AronSora
    Mar 6, 2013
    5
    I like the small maps, the game play mechanic is amazing. Each city is an interesting puzzle and there is no solution as the global market prices for stuff are ever changing. IT's cool having to rebuild who sections of your city. I wish I had 10% more space, I just quiet solve the puzzle, but it's fun. The dam servers however, are crap. I would wait for about a month until they tripleI like the small maps, the game play mechanic is amazing. Each city is an interesting puzzle and there is no solution as the global market prices for stuff are ever changing. IT's cool having to rebuild who sections of your city. I wish I had 10% more space, I just quiet solve the puzzle, but it's fun. The dam servers however, are crap. I would wait for about a month until they triple their server capacity. It also sucks that regions don't transfer between servers.… Expand
  10. hellrazr99
    Mar 6, 2013
    5
    This game is simpler than ever! Great UI and much easier to get off the ground running than previous versions. The always online aspect of this game is horrible at this point. For the digital copy I had to download, install which only took around an hour. Then the headache came and the game had to download more; four hours later the game was finally ready to play. When I say ready to playThis game is simpler than ever! Great UI and much easier to get off the ground running than previous versions. The always online aspect of this game is horrible at this point. For the digital copy I had to download, install which only took around an hour. Then the headache came and the game had to download more; four hours later the game was finally ready to play. When I say ready to play I mean ready to open, not actually play. Game has crashed several times on me already, the tutorial doesn't run, and now the servers are down so I can't even play a private game. EA needs a shakeup and maybe we can get one game to have proper server support at launch.… Expand
  11. Cordacc
    Mar 6, 2013
    5
    I have played, or at least tried to play this game. The tiny amount of time I could get on without crashing was fun and a real sim game with only the city size being any sort of major game play complaint. However I looking at the scores started wondering whether all of the people who gave it a 10 had well, even played the games, especially with many containing simple factual errors. SO II have played, or at least tried to play this game. The tiny amount of time I could get on without crashing was fun and a real sim game with only the city size being any sort of major game play complaint. However I looking at the scores started wondering whether all of the people who gave it a 10 had well, even played the games, especially with many containing simple factual errors. SO I have quickly done some excel work and I think when you take a look at this low user score, as low as it is, it should be lower. Of The current positive scores only 30% wrote a review as compared to the 58% of the negative ratings being reviews. Interesting isn't it that there were son many anonymous positives. Now if we look at the current 60 positive reviews, of the people giving these ratings the average of ratings given by each individual reviewer was 1.75, compared to the positives where the average number of rating per rater was (among the most recent 100) Was 4.33. Now why do you think this could be, I took a closer look and Of these 60 negative reviews 44 of them, 73%, of the raters had given exactly one review and one rating that is only for this one game. And of the remaining 16 people 9 of them had given only 2 reviews and 2 ratings. Leaving only 7 of the 60 raters with more than 2 rating and 2 reviews. People always say that the company will tell employees to rate their games highly or get people to do that for them, this is a little over the top. I just thought that if you are planning on buying this game, you should realize that only 12% of the reviews and probably a lower percent of the ratings were given by any sort of actual thoughtful human. This disgusts me.… Expand
  12. scradam
    Mar 24, 2013
    5
    At first, I gave it a 1 because it was unplayable. Then, I gave it an 8 once they gave me an extra free game and I was able to play for a day. Now, i can't play a single city for more than a day or two because of the recycling bug. This game is basically in the alpha or early beta stage of development. I doubt they will ever actually improve it enough to be an actual release worthyAt first, I gave it a 1 because it was unplayable. Then, I gave it an 8 once they gave me an extra free game and I was able to play for a day. Now, i can't play a single city for more than a day or two because of the recycling bug. This game is basically in the alpha or early beta stage of development. I doubt they will ever actually improve it enough to be an actual release worthy game. EA really really botched this game. It's botched so badly, it's impressive. … Expand
  13. Skyrik
    Mar 6, 2013
    5
    The game is great... if you can ever get to play. Mandatory server access is really stupid for those who want to play alone and really just screws this game over.
  14. Rybolt
    Mar 7, 2013
    5
    I cannot fathom the reasons for the online-only gameplay forced upon players of this game. After playing for 4 hours; (server issues aside), my city has disappeared. All of it. The server ate it, despite having started a private region in which only I was playing. This is, and should be a single player game; as its predecessors have always been. The game itself is actually very good, onceI cannot fathom the reasons for the online-only gameplay forced upon players of this game. After playing for 4 hours; (server issues aside), my city has disappeared. All of it. The server ate it, despite having started a private region in which only I was playing. This is, and should be a single player game; as its predecessors have always been. The game itself is actually very good, once you are able to log in of course. It's a very enjoyable simulation that could live up to its expectations. The new grid-less approach to organizing your city is simply amazing, as are the new features that the game has to offer. The only significant irk I have despite the ridiculous online connectivity requirement is that they should have named it Simtown, as you cannot actually create a city; the size constraints are simply too strict. Why can't I choose to build cities 4 or even 16 times the size of the football field that is provided?

    In short: It's a very good game; that has been destroyed by online connectivity requirements. Admittedly, the situation regarding the overflowing servers should be rectified, but as it stands it is unplayable. A game costing as much as this shouldn't suffer from these kind of launch issues; not after the debacle that was Diablo 3's launch.    … Expand
  15. Emprah
    Mar 7, 2013
    5
    Well, here it is. Although, I'm not that upset that I cannot play the game at the moment (and likely for a few more days).

    What ticks me off the most is what has ticked me off since I found out about it: the transformation of this http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/SimCity4/Negishi/Negishi-East.jpg into this http://i.imgur.com/Q74s5.jpg But I'll get to that. Graphically, the    Well, here it is. Although, I'm not that upset that I cannot play the game at the moment (and likely for a few more days).

    What ticks me off the most is what has ticked me off since I found out about it: the transformation of this http://www.wuphonsreach.org/Games/SimCity4/Negishi/Negishi-East.jpg

    into this
    http://i.imgur.com/Q74s5.jpg

    But I'll get to that.

    Graphically, the game is beautiful. While I prefer a more realistic look, the visuals of this SimCity are definitely a turn to a more simplistic and toy box-like world. The effects and movements of all the tiny pieces on the ground are ultimately satisfying and fun to look at.

    In terms of sound, apart from being a siren simulator, the game is not much of an improvement over SimCity 4, but that is fine.

    Now I hear a lot of people saying that this SimCity is much harder than the older ones. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a false flag. I've been able to make nearly 100k population cities in under an hour while maintaining over a 10k profit (that's including simoleons from specializations) to the point where I have nearly millions...and not really all that much to spend it on. In previous SimCity titles, your job never really felt complete. Now, you eventually build yourself up to the point where continuing is pointless and you are forced to move on to another small square. But this is where my biggest complaint lies.

    Ultimately, this SimCity is a simplified version of previous titles. There are no mass complicated regions and each square is its own independent city, although sims will commute to other cities to shop, work, etc. I also feel like I am having cooperation forced down my throat. I understand that they had a multiplayer vision for this game, but I think that vision is in no way true to that of SimCity. Not that SimCity cannot be multiplayer and even cooperative, but I think it should never have been dumbed down to the point of baby's first sim game while not even focusing on what made SimCity so captivating: that it was hard, expansive, and that it offered you huge options. Did you like thermoforming? Well, too bad, because that's gone...or did you like creating your own mass transit highways? Well...yeah, that's gone.

    Personally, I enjoyed being not a mayor of one square, but being a bunch of mayors and even God of the entire region. I could build entire regions by hand using terraforming tools and then start building small, huge, and everything in between cities.

    In terms of the always online feature, I have no qualms. I lived through the Diablo III launch and have come to expect this I suppose. But it is unfortunate that such a launch was, once again, handled so poorly. Not only that, but while Blizzard has probably the best forum service and PR I have seen, EA and Maxis have next to no PR and a poor forum system. Apart of what kept people on DIII is that Blizzard took a proactive stance in communicating to its buyers and still continues to work with players in order to deliver a better product, even after nearly almost a whole year. Ultimately, I believe SimCity has fallen victim to a type of mixing the complicated structure of SimCity with the simple and easy-to-access world of the Sims; to appearing hostile to long-time fans of SimCity; to over simplification; and to a poor launch, which it seems has solidified the opinions of many.

    Will Maxis and EA work together with fans to deliver the best SimCity they can, or will they fall short due to their poor PR or unwillingness to give fans what they want?    … Expand
  16. Makeelee
    Mar 8, 2013
    5
    I haven't purchased the game (yet), but I've honestly gotten more entertainment from watching EA getting scorched than I have had in a long time. So I give the game a 5.
  17. Subwalrus
    Mar 9, 2013
    5
    The Good: A lot of fun. Great strategy playability amongst the regions.
    The Bad: Small city sizes all gameplay online with your game(s) saved in the cloud...
  18. TGMode
    Mar 9, 2013
    5
    When I eventually did get to play in single player mode after 2 days it looks great and has some interesting stuff but within 2 hours I had run out of space. I paid £60+ for this and when I've finished this review I'm going to boot up Cities XL
  19. OrthoStice
    Mar 18, 2013
    5
    The servers generally seem to work when logging in but even now I still experience issues where the game will freeze and I'm told that the server needs to "roll back" my game to an earlier point in time. A few other points: You aren't technically forced to interact with others. You can set your region to private and then create multiple cities within the region, which seems to be the wayThe servers generally seem to work when logging in but even now I still experience issues where the game will freeze and I'm told that the server needs to "roll back" my game to an earlier point in time. A few other points: You aren't technically forced to interact with others. You can set your region to private and then create multiple cities within the region, which seems to be the way to go. Iodiotic AI ensures that your city will apparently always have traffic problems and that tourists may or might not go to your tourist attractions. Problems with the AI seem to multiply when multiple large cities are in the same region. This game should still be in beta. Nevertheless it still looks great and is a lot of fun, when it works. I've played it a lott so I couldn't in good faith give it too low of a score. If it worked more smoothly it would deserve an 8. If plot sizes were bigger then it would be a 9. If you didn't always have to be online, in addition, it would be a 10.… Expand
  20. PaulJazz24
    Feb 8, 2019
    5
    Graphics are wonderful with those pastel colors: everything seems a plastic model seen through camera lens: Stunning.
    The gameplay is completely different from SimCity 4, but very fun and addictive.
    It has many big bugs, never fixed, the game was abandoned 1 year after the release. What a pity! Otherwise it deserves 10.
  21. User_Critic
    Mar 16, 2013
    5
    The GlassBox thing is obviously raw. AI is dumb. Etc, etc. But most of these things can be patched. Yet there is 1 serious issue that cannot be, most likely. It is the plot's size. At present it looks like a small town. And by the sounds of it the GB just cannot handle big and huge maps well. So, if one wants to build a City, Cities XL Platinum is a safer bet. In terms of complexity theyThe GlassBox thing is obviously raw. AI is dumb. Etc, etc. But most of these things can be patched. Yet there is 1 serious issue that cannot be, most likely. It is the plot's size. At present it looks like a small town. And by the sounds of it the GB just cannot handle big and huge maps well. So, if one wants to build a City, Cities XL Platinum is a safer bet. In terms of complexity they are about equally easy (Cities just try to simulate the city in more depth, while SimCity tries to simulate the sims). But Citites looks like a City when you zoom out, while SC looks like a shiny town.… Expand
  22. SimCityFreak
    Mar 18, 2013
    5
    I deeply respect and commend all efforts made in order to modernize the new SimCity and produce a superb graphics engine with innovative and realistic additions such as expansions to public service buildings, realistic traffic aesthetics, incredible detail, school bus stops, and so on.

    However, for us die-hard SimCity fans, this game falls very short of our expectations, namely for just    I deeply respect and commend all efforts made in order to modernize the new SimCity and produce a superb graphics engine with innovative and realistic additions such as expansions to public service buildings, realistic traffic aesthetics, incredible detail, school bus stops, and so on.

    However, for us die-hard SimCity fans, this game falls very short of our expectations, namely for just a few yet devastatingly consequential reasons:

    No terraforming. Nearly half of the pleasure of the old SimCity was creating a landscape that was entirely a product of your own work and settling the human population where you wished and where the terrain best fitted such development. The satisfaction of "owning your work" and producing an entirely customized terrain that boasts and entirely customized network of human development is indescribable. The loss of this option in the new SimCity is thus also indescribable.

    Tiny city boundaries. In a game where I would be deeply involved in playing a region for months and sometimes years concocting sprawling metropolises, industrial suburbs, bedroom residential communities, satellite cities, extensive interconnected mass transportation networks... I have grown agonizingly frustrated with the fact that my cities are unrealistically constrained by tiny square borders. In fact, the city limits are built-out so quickly that I've already grown bored with the game only after a few days of playing it. No possibility for expansion or realistic regional connections equates to no more motivation for me to play the game.

    City boundaries do not touch each other. Similar to my last point, I cannot "continue" one city into an adjacent one to create a realistic and expansively developed metropolitan area. Instead I am restrained to making rather isolated communities connected by "exits" on a transportation network that is reminiscent of how post-World War II sprawling suburban communities are connected.

    Zoning is regulated by roads. If I want a higher-capacity road in a rural area and simply wish to have some light development along it, I'm out of luck. Mid- and high-rise buildings will unrealistically rise out of what was intended to be a sparsely populated landscape. In real life, zoning is not delegated by road capacity. In fact, there are numerous examples of high density developments on tiny roads. Restricted vehicular mobility in such areas are compensated by extensive mass transportation networks. The game is highly-geared to the road, which in my opinion, is a big step backwards. If I want to zone high density on a small street, please let me do it. My sims will either suffer the consequences or I will figure out a way to make it work through other transit options. In any case, give me the freedom to make that decision.

    Truth be told, the highly controversial move to entirely-online game play does not bother me one bit. In fact, it's great because I don't have to save extensively large files associated with SimCity on my computer anymore. If I wanted to, I could invite friends to make cities in a region with me and we could cooperatively build a metropolitan area together. That is such a great idea and deserves much applause. This does, in fact, push the game into the 21st century.

    Unfortunately, though, despite the wonderful aspects of the new SimCity, the four major downfalls mentioned above, in my opinion, have taken the game back into the 20th century. For "self-proclaimed" veterans and die-hard fans like myself, there are several major disappointments to the new SimCity that degrade the game to the level of undesirable. Having been playing SimCity since I was a small child, I've watched as the game has made leaps and bounds toward more creative, customizable, expansive, and realistic game play. But as I play the new SimCity, it pains me to say that I've been taken backwards. My hands literally feel like they're tied, in so many ways.

    I really do hope that the keys to these handcuffs associated with the new SimCity's game play are not thrown away forever. I strongly urge you to incorporate elements from the previous SimCity (as indicated above in the points above) into the new SimCity and perhaps come out with a serious of patches, updates, or whatever is needed to bring the real SimCity back to life. The innovate and highly appealing elements are there, but some of the most basic, realistic, and quite frankly expected, aspects of the game need to be reincorporated.    … Expand
  23. icedanielizatio
    Mar 20, 2013
    5
    First off, I had no connection problems, it probably helped that i'm in New New Zealand. So as I began exploring the game and its features I thought to myself, wow, this is a well built game, the modding capabilities are going to be huge. But every now and then something would crop up and cause a confused face; the first one was the small plot of land, I shrugged it off and thought theFirst off, I had no connection problems, it probably helped that i'm in New New Zealand. So as I began exploring the game and its features I thought to myself, wow, this is a well built game, the modding capabilities are going to be huge. But every now and then something would crop up and cause a confused face; the first one was the small plot of land, I shrugged it off and thought the mechanics must be different. The second confusion showed its face when I first hit the 100,000 mark, at that point I noticed the city I had built had become so squished with tall buildings that it no longer resembled a typical city, to make matters worse, I could not build all the structures I would have liked to, this led me to understand that the game does not want me to play alone, it wants me to either play other plots of land in the same region and specialize them to support each other, or wait for online players to join in. The frustration was starting to set in heavy at that point. 1. I do not like loading and reloading all these different cities that don't even look like cities just to support the one city you care about. 2. When I attempted to start a multiplayer game, no body joined. So with a final attempt at giving the game a chance, I looked for existing maps to join, but very few were active longer than 3 days and those that were, are full; so no hope there either.

    Maxis, if you read this, you have a valuable game sitting here, this is only going to be successful for you right now: release the modding tools, but if you won't do that, at least focus the game for single player, doubling the plot size would be a welcome start. If something does not happen within the next few weeks, I'm sorry to say goodbye to another could-have-been. Just take the plunge and listen to us gamers for once.    … Expand
  24. Barranoid
    Mar 20, 2013
    5
    I won't go into much detail about the DRM stuff. It's EA's Origin. Like it or hate it.

    The game itself however, once you finally manage to log in, plays pretty fun for a couple of hours. The cities are rather small so you have to expand inside your region to create new cities that can provide each other with different services. This makes a huge part of the so called multiplayer    I won't go into much detail about the DRM stuff. It's EA's Origin. Like it or hate it.

    The game itself however, once you finally manage to log in, plays pretty fun for a couple of hours. The cities are rather small so you have to expand inside your region to create new cities that can provide each other with different services. This makes a huge part of the so called multiplayer experience, since you can either choose to build up several cities in one region all by yourself or let your friends build some in your region. A good idea actually but server instabilities, slow response times (e.g. it takes AGES to send someone inside your region a gift. Hell it even takes ages to do so while playing all on your own with different cities inside YOUR region).

    After a couple of mostly pretty entertaining hours however the game starts to behave "strange". A city with a HUGE load of residents and nearly no industry whatsoever suddently starts complaining about not enough workers?! At first you might start to compensate by building "support cities" that provide more workforce for your main city but this doesn't help at all. The reason is that the actual resident size is more or less a hoax. Doing the math (google it, I really don't want to go into detail here), a city of 100000 residents might just have 10000 real ones, logicaly not providing enough workers for the industry.

    The flaws of SimCity really make it hard to enjoy after a while and although it could be a very very good game, it isn't. Sadly.    … Expand
  25. jwayner
    Mar 23, 2013
    5
    I've played SimCity for countless hours, a few of those hours where in beta. Of course, within the allotted beta time there wasn't a great ability to build a very large city that would have traffic problems. The game seamed great in beta but now that the full game is out, my entire opinion of this game has changed. Below are some areas of the game that I have a problem with. 1. TrafficI've played SimCity for countless hours, a few of those hours where in beta. Of course, within the allotted beta time there wasn't a great ability to build a very large city that would have traffic problems. The game seamed great in beta but now that the full game is out, my entire opinion of this game has changed. Below are some areas of the game that I have a problem with. 1. Traffic
    This is the biggest problem because it translates into many more problems, such as fires not being extinguished and criminals not being arrested. It also negatively effects tourist attractions and trade, garbage collection and other issues. Try plopping an airport and watch the masses of taxis pile up on your roads. Adding mass transit only seems to worsen the traffic problem and while the recent game update did help lighten traffic some, it wasn't enough to thoroughly enjoy the game more. Previous versions of SimCity offered one way streets, subway travel and the ability to connect cities with each other via highway and other methods. Can you think of many real cities that only has one road connecting it to the outside world? The game needs a complete do-over when it comes to transportation and regional connectivity. 2. City Size
    When it comes to the size of the city I would much rather be playing CityVille (a free Facebook game) which allows you to expand your city boundaries as you meet certain achievements. I spent $79 on my copy of SimCity (as did many of you) and I most certainly do not appreciate the relatively small city boundaries that are present in this game. Plop a municipal airport and expand a few wind or solar farms and then see how much space you have left.

    3. Others
    There are numerous bugs throughout the game and the only real way to bring it to Maxis's attention is to post in a forum, I'm not a big fan of forums, the game needs a built in form to submit bugs.
    The game doesn't have enough depth to it to keep me entertained for long, to be honest, if it weren't for the traffic problems I probably would have already got bored with it and quit anyways. For example, what is the most used utility besides electric and water (maybe even as much as those)? Cell phones! It looks like this neighborhood could use a cell tower! It looks like the city needs to contract with a cable provider. Simple additions like this would continue to make the game more entertaining.
    What happened to the ordinances? These little city laws that you could activate in SC4 made a world of difference on traffic, pollution, education, health and many other aspects of the game.
    Server issues appear to be a thing of the past and that's great but now it's time to focus on the overall game. I didn't want my review and thoughts of the game to be based on server issues so with those aside, I give the game a 5/10 rating. Since the game is fully a connected experience (which I'm perfectly okay with) I hope to see many improvements made but I think I'll wait awhile before I hop on the game again.    … Expand
  26. level5dwarf
    Jun 29, 2013
    5
    The game now, a few months after release, is good and quite enjoyable. The game alone i'd rate as good as any other simcity, about an 8 rating. The downside of the game now is that despite best efforts it didn't bring anything new to the table with the multiplayer aspect. That said... at release it was awful as the negative reviews show, and it really would make me think again beforeThe game now, a few months after release, is good and quite enjoyable. The game alone i'd rate as good as any other simcity, about an 8 rating. The downside of the game now is that despite best efforts it didn't bring anything new to the table with the multiplayer aspect. That said... at release it was awful as the negative reviews show, and it really would make me think again before buying anything with DRM such as this or any EA/Maxis product again as they were caught lying and time after time refused to refund a completely unplayable (at the time) game.… Expand
  27. krovosos111
    Mar 27, 2013
    5
    регионе.

    All regions are clogged, filter by region, and there is no possibility of finding an empty area, too, the whole line launched in the toilet if you do not have any friends with this game you'll play alone in the region. Google Translate
  28. Geracritic
    Apr 7, 2013
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Sim City is a great game where you learn a lot of cities, the acting is good management, but has many problems on maps and graphs that present technical difficulties in large scale.… Expand
  29. MaxGayLord
    May 16, 2013
    5
    Look, I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's a bad game. SimCity had potential to be a great game, but Maxis and EA flubbed up with the DRM and the many under the hood mechanics.
  30. Jake_
    Oct 29, 2013
    5
    I have begun to really hate EA and Origin recently, too many bad decisions have resulted in SimCity being unplayable most of the time, due to servers being full or not having a good enough internet connection. The Game is good, you just can't get on there 50% of the time. EA It's in the game (of you can actually get on it in the first place).
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Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
21
#21 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 75 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 75
  2. Mixed: 39 out of 75
  3. Negative: 10 out of 75
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Jun 5, 2013
    65
    Given enough patches and DCLs, SimCity might eventually become the game that should have been on its release and justify the ambiguous choices that its developers made. [May 2013]
  2. Games Master UK
    May 9, 2013
    68
    Hints at great things but is limited by small cities and promises it can't deliver on. [June 2013, p.80]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    May 9, 2013
    40
    There's more problems with this game than I have words. Looks great though. [June 2013, p.80]
See all critic reviews »